How can I say this in French?

March 19, 2004 1:44 PM

I have a Google API app that's getting a lot of traffic from a French site. Can someone give me a quick idiomatic translation into French of a two-sentence "API key overloaded for today" message? [more inside]

So, I have several CGI scripts that use the Google API. Unless you provide your own key, they use my Google API key, which only allows 1000 queries per day. When one of these apps is linked to from a popular site, the key quickly reaches the daily limit. Once this happens, I have a message that tells English speakers what's going on, but since the visitors currently overloading it are coming from a site written in French, I'd like to throw in a French translation of the following:

Sorry, but we're occasionally too popular for our own good. Our Google API key has a limit of 1000 queries per day, and if you're seeing this message, we've exceeded it. You can either get your own key and enter it in the "License key" field above, or come back tomorrow.

Merci.

posted by staggernation to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Response by poster: (By the way, "License key" should remain in English, since I'm not planning to change the field labels.)
posted by staggernation at 1:46 PM on March 19, 2004

This is google's own translation, and with my barely-passable French (thank you Mme Morlacci for your years of French teaching), looks ok to me:

Désolé, mais nous soyez de temps en temps trop populaire pour notre propre bien. Notre clef de Google api a une limite de 1000 questions par jour, et si vous voyez ce message, nous l'avons excédé. Vous pouvez obtenir votre propre clef et l'écrire dans le domaine principal de "permis" ci-dessus, ou revenir demain.

Or just throw in a "Zut alors!" somewhere.
posted by Salmonberry at 2:42 PM on March 19, 2004

Salmonberry's translation is mostly okay, but you may want to simplify it somewhat to reduce confusion. I'd suggest something like this:

Erreur! Notre «API Key» de Google a une limite de 1000 questions par jour, et si vous voyez ce message, nous l'avons excédé. Vous pouvez obtenir votre propre «API Key» et l'écrire dans le boîte «Licence key» ci-dessus, ou revenir demain. Nous aplogise pour le dérangement.

posted by cheaily at 5:30 PM on March 19, 2004

some nits.

i think it should be

et écrivez-le dans la boîte ci-dessus

though perhaps not. i seem to remember you only conjugate the first verb in a french sentence...though i don't know what happens when you have dependent clauses and such.

also, "nous apologise" probably isn't right. i'm thinking nous faisons des excuses pour le dérangement. if "apologise" is a french word, it doesn't look like it's conjugated properly anyway.

so...cheaily could be dead on, i'm not certain. i'm just trying to perfect the phrase.
posted by taumeson at 6:20 PM on March 19, 2004

la traduction idiomatique: "Nous demandons à vous" (we apologize to you)
posted by jazzkat11 at 6:51 PM on March 19, 2004

Here's a relatively businesslike version:

Nous sommes désolés, mais parfois notre site est trop populaire. Notre «API Key» de Google est limitée à 1000 questions par jour. Si vous voyez ce message, la limite est déjà dépassée. Pour contourner cette limite, vous pouvez soit obtenir votre propre «API Key» auprès de Google, et ensuite l'inscrire dans la zone «Licence key» ci-dessus, soit réessayer demain. Nous nous excusons de la gène occassionnée.
posted by fuzz at 3:01 AM on March 20, 2004

A fun and simple version? Babelfish and my crappy french skills massged this:

Site Web surchargé. Essai encore plus tard. MALPT!
posted by shepd at 5:25 AM on March 20, 2004